


Rescuing Pradclif

by RoeDusk



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Actually no Graphic Violence, Disgusing stuff referenced though, Gen, Overseer Pradclif is the guy forced to eat his fellow Overseer by the Brigmore Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoeDusk/pseuds/RoeDusk
Summary: I'd spent several days after playing Brigmore Witches the first time trying to find any fanfic where Overseer Pradclif was rescued by Daud but couldn't find one.  So I wrote something.  (Then forgot to post it for over a year, sorry all.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> _Overseer: “Please. No. Don’t make me eat anymore. I can’t… Brother Marcus. I denounce. I denounce the Abbey! Wandering Gaze. Lying Tongue. Restless Hands. Roving Feet. Ramp… Rampant (hurling sound)! The Seven Strictures are seven lies. The High Overseer is the whelp of a wolfhound bitch. The Seven Strictures are seven lies. Seven lies! Seven lies!"_   
>  _Daud: "What happened to you?"_   
>  _Overseer: (whispers) "I denounce. I denounce the oracles. The oracles… they… they saw(recovers himself a little here). The Kaldwin girl is the key. The girl in the painting."_   
>  _Daud: "Where is Delilah?"_   
>  _(Overseer screams, summoning a Witch who kills him. Need to dart him fast when he starts, or as Daud asks about Delilah, to save him.)_

 

The deed was done, Delilah trapped immobile in the Void forever. (Not a bowl of fruit but close enough.) But he couldn’t leave yet. For all they’d done the Witches were no problem of his anymore, if they even still had their powers. The shattered Overseer was another matter.

Retracing his steps, Daud found the poor man still hidden behind the sketches of Emily Kaldwin, mind forced calm by the sleep-toxin. His stomach was likely no calmer than before, and the lad would require a long recovery after the poison’s further agitation, if he recovered at all. The assassin had hesitated leaving him there, but figured waking in an unfamiliar room couldn’t make things much worse, and the witches were unlikely to disturb the canvasses to look if they found the other man missing.

Hoisting the body over his shoulder, Daud settled his weight before heading out.

 

 

* * *

 

It was a bit more complicated getting out with those outside in a frenzy and the body of a tortured man slung over his shoulder. Daud swiftly passed over the graveyard wall and up the cliffside supports, not trusting the open drive. Thomas was waiting for him there, as were the others. They looked to the battered body in surprise, but didn’t question.

“Take him to the ship, make sure Lizzy doesn’t know he’s not one of ours,” Daud murmured, offering the injured man to Thomas, who took him. “Come get me if he even starts waking. And Thomas?” He sighed as the man looked to him in question, “Make sure no one eats meat anywhere near him. If he asks for anything to eat or drink, only fruit, whatever we can get our hands on, clean water, and a ration of elixir.”

“Understood,” Thomas agreed simply, before disappearing with the man in his grip. At Daud’s nod, the others followed. As did he. Back to Lizzie’s ship and passage to Dunwall.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They worked him out of his overseers robes carefully, painfully, as the blood and torn edges caught in his still bleeding injuries. Unsure of how to help when he might not wake in time for an elixir, Daud gave Thomas the go ahead in pouring some carefully over the man’s wounds. It wouldn’t be a whole dose, but hopefully he would take in enough to keep him healthy until they could wake him.

The shirt and coat went over the side, unsalvageable, with nothing in the pockets left to save. The pants were soaked with blood, but one of Lizzie’s men asked for them so they were handed over instead of following the shirt. Daud shook his head when his men went to get rid of the Overseer’s mask. That, at least would come clean, and the Overseer might want back anything they could save. The boots had to stay too, getting something in his size might be more difficult than scrubbing blood out of the leather.

Lizzie gave Daud a dark look when he asked her to stop by the Flooded District before Drapier’s Ward, but she agreed, on the condition that her debt was paid. The assassin said he’d think about it and she snorted, before changing course. Only to the very edge, but that’s all they needed to depart. Vanished from the deck with her no more knowledgeable to their home location than knowing the district. Less than the Overseers that had already attacked, at least.

Settled back into their lair for lack of a better idea, Daud helped his remaining Whalers break down more of the passages to the building and trap the rest. The Overseers would think they’d moved on or they wouldn’t, but it was the only base Daud still had. The Whalers as a whole couldn’t move, and he wouldn’t leave them.  
Besides, a reckoning was coming, and he’d rather face it than run.

 

* * *

 

 

They called Daud in as soon as the sleep-toxin wore off, catching him in the middle of changing from his Brigmore Lake-damp clothes. He tossed his ammo belts at one of them, fresh jacket still in one hand, and headed for the room they’d decided to keep the Overseer in. (One of the main positives being the small holes along the ceiling. At least he’d be able to check he wasn’t still in the torture room.)

Without his mask, bandaged and in borrowed trousers, the Overseer looked younger somehow. Eyes wide, he’d dragged himself painfully into a corner, and when Daud went to approach him he fell back into pleading desperately, one hand coming up to shield his face. Pleading not to be forced, or hurt, and denouncing the scriptures even after the assassin leader backed off.

Daud could see the cruelty in Delilah, in her followers. Bitter at what they had suffered and lashing out at those who’d threatened them now that they were powerful. He could see the mirrors between the history of her coven and his men, the eerie echoes. But here he was with his men backing him up, trying to save an Overseer from what her witches had done to him. And he hoped that that, at least, meant he’d done something right. Something she hadn’t.

Unsure of what to do, the assassin bent down to a crouch and approached the broken man. When the other seemed drawn as tight as he could get before injuring himself further, Daud stopped and held out his jacket. “Here. You look like you need this more than I do.”

Silence fell at his words, and he could feel the surprise from his men behind him. The Overseer seemed to hear Daud’s words, something breaking through the darkness threatening to drown him. He glanced up, hand still outstretched as though to ward off a blow, and stared at the jacket in shock.

“Go on, you’re making me cold looking at you,” Daud continued easily, holding the jacket out a little further. Inwardly he wondered how long it had been since the other had been offered a kind word. And, for himself, when did he last hold a conversation without a blade defining him. Even his Whalers joined after being rescued, seeing him ever after through the lense of battle and combat training.

The Overseer blinked hazily once, before his free hand jumped up to cover his mouth and he looked queasy. But he didn’t heave. A moment later he managed to push the thought down, whatever it had been, and his hand shot out, grabbing the coat before he could think better of it. Daud made sure to let it go just as quickly, and watched as the man drew it too him. He didn’t try to slide his hands into the sleeves, or draw it over his back, both moves would have given Daud a clear opening. But he did draw it to his chest, curling a little in an attempt to get warm. And looking away when he remembered his audience.

A pear materialized at Daud’s shoulder, and he took it, shooting a grateful look at the Whaler who offered it. An elixir was offered next, and he took that as well before turning back to the hunched Overseer.

“Here,” the assassin offered, startling the younger man into looking up. Daud held out the elixir and pear in one cupped hand. The Overseer’s eyes pinched shut for a second, before he forced himself to look. Then he reached out hesitantly, taking the pear. Both hands now full, he withdrew back into himself, shooting the elixir a long look before looking away. But Daud startled both of them by reaching out and placing the vial across the younger man’s legs.

“Nobody here wants you getting sick,” he explained to a disbelieving stare and waves of shock from his men. Pulling back to give the lad some space, Daud sighed. “We took you back to Dunwall, to our base in the Flooded District. The others will be watching you, making sure you don’t do anything drastic, but I’ll be around if you want to talk to me. We’ll do what we can to help, but the important part is this: You’re not going back, and that bitch, Delilah, is dead.”

“Dead?” The Overseer’s desperation lifted for a moment before crashing back, “How?”

“I killed her myself,” Daud promised, not sure he was up to explaining the paintings and the void just yet, if ever.

“Thank you -” the younger man breathed before curling into his corner. He looked down at the pear in his hand, the his other arm holding the red jacket across his chest, and there was something there in his eyes. Determination? Hope? Maybe just life, Daud didn’t know. But whatever it was, he lifted the fruit to his mouth and took the tiniest bite. And, though he paled to nearly white and his eyes snapped closed, he managed to swallow that bite down.

“We’re here if you need us, try to get some rest,” Daud murmured a final time, before crouch-walking back a few steps then standing to go. “The rest of you, out.” He lead the way, refusing to turn back until he was around the doorframe and a ways down the hall. Then he looked over his shoulder at his temporary, or just new?, second.

“Thomas, get someone… kind, on watch for him.”

“On it,” the Whaler agreed and teleported away.

**Author's Note:**

> And then Corvo doesn't accidentally mistake him for Daud at all. Because I didn't think of that when I gave him Daud's coat. 
> 
> I'm assuming Daud was doing a mercy/redemption run and Corvo spares him at the end without harming any of his Whalers.


End file.
